application | meta

[pyl]

Player —

Player Name: Chris
Pronouns: they/them
Are you over 18? Yess
Contact: sharknado
Current Characters: n/a
Who Invited You?: Shikki

Character —

Character Name: Yelena Belova
Character Canon: MCU
Character Age: 28/29
Canon Point: Approx 2 years after the film Black Widow ( seen as a flashback in Hawkeye 1x05 )
Link to History: HERE
Inventory:
— A single dose of Red Dust - a chemical gas compound used to free victims of Red Room mind control from subjugation.
— Glock 26 + one clip of ammo
— Dual Black Widow's Bite weapons
— A very cool vest.

Powers:
Existing Abilities:
— Trained Black Widow Assassin: as part of her training in the Red Room, Yelena is proficient in many languages, skilled in combat both hand-to-hand and with a wide range of weaponry, she is highly skilled in spycraft and infiltration, with master reflexes and acrobatic training. This training was all conducted with her at human limitations, although part of that training included overcoming base human instincts like pain response.

Fun New Things:
— Enhanced strength: with an upper limit of lifting/throwing projectiles around the size of a small car/vehicle — this would require a lot of exertion on her part and would be exhausting.
— Enhanced durability: A bit tougher and a bit more hardy. This has no bearing on her rate of healing which is still solidly stuck at base human level, more that it might take a solid projectile to break a nose rather than just a fist.

Personality —

What were your character's most formative experiences?:

— OHIO: At a young age Yelena was raised as part of a fake family in a deep undercover assignment, though due to her young age she was not aware that the family was not real at the time and believed the two agents and the other young girl to be her real parents and sister. These three years were largely loving and supportive, a happy time for Yelena and the only experience she ever had of her family. She still feels a great attachment to the people involved in this assignment, though those feelings are complicated by the fact that she felt very abandoned by them for a very long time.

— RED ROOM: After the ending of their undercover assignment Yelena was brought back to the Red Room and trained mercilessly in combat, espionage and infiltration, training that only "one in twenty" go on to survive and become a Black Widow — an elite network of female spies and assassins controlled by one man. Part of this training involves deep psychological conditioning, though after the defection of a prominent member (Natasha Romanoff, Yelena's fake sister) the program shifted to using chemical mind control instead. This particular brand of mind control isn't as simple as just taking over a person, instead an insidious form of manipulation that makes it very difficult for the subject to tell where it begins and the person ends, even after the control is broken. Yelena's years spent with the Red Room taught her to be a ruthless, relentless individual with a very warped view of right and wrong.

— RELEASE: Yelena's release from Red Room control is what ultimately shifts her life away from one as a spy and assassin and puts her on the path to tearing the organisation down. As soon as the control is broken Yelena is visibly distressed about what just happened, her role in the injury and death of the person who breaks her control, and immediately determined to do what she can to protect the antidote that broke her chemical subjugation. In a matter of seconds she decides to cut out her own tracker and escape with the antidote, rather than hand it over to the authority that has trained and controlled her for the last two decades.

What values, morals, and/or philosophies does your character live by, and how are those beliefs demonstrated? What happens when they have to compromise what they believe in?

Yelena clearly operates on a policy of "the ends justifying the means". On a larger scale, Yelena immediately supports and assists in the destruction of the program that trained her, but she has no problem with commandeering a car and stealing it from a man at gunpoint. Her humour is very dry and sarcastic, twisted into something dark by the horrific things that she has both witnessed and actively participated in as an assassin — but she is very funny. Her belief system is very malleable by design, her morals shifting to align with the position that she finds herself in — in her future she will start working as an assassin-for-hire again, long after the destruction of the Red Room, because of the slim options available to her. While she will make the hero's play for a cause big enough (the Red Room) generally Yelena's survival is the priority, with her loyalty to a select few people falling close behind that. It is a belief system that is difficult to compromise on because of the individualistic nature.

What is your character afraid of? How does avoiding or preventing these fears influence their actions and decisions?

Loss of her own autonomy is just about the only thing that continues to scare Yelena. With a clearly demonstrated ability to defend herself and a brash overconfidence that comes largely from not being bested, there's very little that can actually scare Yelena these days. With her history of subjugation, returning to that state seems to be just about the only thing that she's genuinely fearful of, and Yelena goes to great lengths to tear down the organisation responsible, as well as setting off on a mission to find and release all the other Black Widows still trapped in the position she was in. With her violent history and morally grey compass, there is very little that she would not do in the pursuit of protecting her own autonomy.

What goals does your character have right now? What do they want, and how do they go about getting it?

Yelena's main goals after the destruction of the Red Room are centred around finding other women in her position and freeing them from the control that they're still held under, even if the puppet master behind it is now dead. Beyond that she shows little interest in building a new family — she expresses a desire for a dog, and while she's charming and personable in the right circumstances, Yelena shows little interest in deeper connection outside of her work. Yelena has spent her whole life as a mission-oriented individual as part of her Black Widow role, and old habits die hard. With a little more freedom and less of a main objective present, it may give her the opportunity to build and potentially deepen bonds with other people, something she has never prioritised before now. Or maybe she'll just get that dog.

Gameplay —

Areas of Interest / Brainstorming:

At this stage I'm interested in her taking the Unaligned route and potentially digging into that struggle, leaning into the 'superpower for hire' angle for a bit but ideally with the eventual goal of aligning with the heroic types down the road? Some mistrustful type team-ups will surely be on the horizon, no matter how transparent the world might be she'll still be very heavily sus of the whole thing and it could be fun to loop in a few other sus type characters for some intense PTB scrutiny

Samples:
TDM pls dont judge too harshly it's been a tough week / ANOTHER THING